Guest column: U.S. wrong to oppose UN status for Palestine

Editor: On 29 November, the United Nations General Assembly voted to upgrade the UN status of Palestine to “non-member observer state,” the same category as the Vatican. The resolution approved the de facto recognition of the sovereign state of Palestine, a status that Palestinians hope will provide new leverage to end the 45-year illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. The vote is seen as international approval of Palestine’s legitimacy.

The UN Security Council has officially declared Israeli-occupied territories to be “the Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including Jerusalem.” The Security Council made that declaration in 27 UNSC resolutions. A conference of the parties to the 4th Geneva Convention, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and the Israeli Supreme Court have also resolved that these territories are occupied.

The occupation violates international law.

138 nations voted for the resolution. The U.S and Israel were two of the nine nations that voted against it.

The U.S. and Israel have remained steadfast in their opposition, saying the move will not advance the cause of Middle East peace. Both governments have declared that the road to a two-state solution to the Palestinian issue goes through negotiations in Jerusalem, and not through the UN.

Both governments are wrong.

The UN just determined the status of Palestinian statehood. Israel has no authority to grant statehood.

What must go through Jerusalem is the end of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.

Israel has good reason to be bitterly opposed to the UN resolution granting Palestine observer state status. That status permits Palestine to join the International Criminal Court in the Hague, the ICC. As a signee of the ICC, Palestine could file complaints with the court accusing Israel of war crimes.

Israeli settlements built on occupied Palestinian territory are in violation of the 4th Geneva Convention. Breaches of the Convention are prosecutable as war crimes by the ICC.

Protocol 1 of article 85 of the 4th Geneva Convention declares that the transfer of an occupiers civilian population to occupied territory is a grave breach of article 49 of the 4th Convention.

The UN International Court of Justice ruled that Israeli provision of infrastructure: land, schools, synagogues, water, electricity, roads, to the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem constitutes transfer of civilian population to occupied territory in violation of the Convention.

In retaliation for the Palestinian success at the UN, on 30 November Israel announced its intention to build 3,000 new housing units in east Jerusalem and the West Bank: a further violation of the 4th Convention.

Palestinian President Abbas told reporters before leaving New York that the Palestinians had no immediate plans to initiate ICC action against Israel.

But Abbas’s comment was made before the Israeli government announced plans to build the new housing units, and this Israeli announcement might just prove to be the catalyst for Palestine to reconsider it’s intentions with regard to pursuing ICC war crime charges against Israel.

Following the Israeli announcement, Britain, France, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Australia and Brazil summoned the Israeli ambassadors to their countries on Monday to protest Israel’s plans for increased settlement construction, an unusually sharp diplomatic step that reflected the growing frustration abroad with Israel’s policies on the Palestinian issue.

The Israeli blockade of Gaza also makes Israel vulnerable to war crime charges for violation of article 33 of the 4th Geneva Convention: collective punishment of a civilian population.

With its plans to increase its illegal settlement activities, Israel is now skating on very thin ice, and this time, the U.S. may not be able to save it.

The writer served 25 years as an operations officer in the CIA Clandestine Service.

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The Balfour Declaration may be the most extraordinary document produced by any Government in world history. It took the form of a letter from the Government of His Britannic Majesty King George the Fifth, the Government of the largest empire the world has even known, on which -- once upon a time -- the sun never set; a letter to an international financier of the banking house of Rothschild who had been made a peer of the realm.

Arthur Koestler ( a Hungarian Jew ) wrote that in the letter "one nation solemnly promised to a second nation the country of a third." More than that, the country was still part of the Empire of a fourth, namely Turkey.

It read:

Foreign Office, November 2nd,1917

Dear Lord Rothschild,

I have much pleasure in conveying to you on behalf of His Majesty's Government the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations, which has been submitted to and approved by the Cabinet:

"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

I should be grateful if you would bring this Declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.

In 1947 the United Nations passed a resolution that created the state of Israel. This same resolution, also called the ‘Partition Resolution,’ created a state for the Arab Palestinians. The Arab nations in the region rejected the Partition Resolution, which included a state for the Palestinians, and went to war against Israel in 1948. If the Arab nations had accepted the Partition Resolution there would today be a separate state for the Palestinians. Israel is not to blame for this failure and the ongoing propaganda effort aimed at Israel is based either in ignorance or willful deception.

Hamas and the Palestinian Authority refuse to officially recognize Israel’s right to exist. Hamas publicly calls for the destruction of Israel. How can a peace treaty ever be negotiated and honored in good faith by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority so long as they hold to these positions?

Hamas and the PLO follow the Islamic practice of taqiyya, which allows lies and deception to advance the cause of Islam. They can not be trusted to keep any treaty.

The UN is a joke. World Jewry thought the UN was the greatest organization in the world when it granted Israel the authority to declare statehood. What happened?
Israel is in violation of more UN resolutions than all the other nations of the world combined. And consequently every Israel and their diaspora supporters attack the UN. There is an appropriate analogy. How many convicted felons praise the judicial system.

The UN is an internationally endorsed organization, charged with the responsibility to determine goals to establish and maintain international peace and promote cooperation in solving international economic, social and humanitarian problems, and provide for the people of the world the right to life, liberty and nationality; to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; the right to work and to be educated; the right to food and housing; and the right to take part in government.
And you consider it a joke? That statement says more about you than the UN.